You'll notice that in the following battle report I mention Scott using some possessed marines. This is because he deployed them thinking he'd put them in. Thankfully, they weren't really instrumental so it didn't matter too much but annoying nonetheless.

The two lists are pretty similar so it'll be interesting to see which performs best.

DeploymentWe got Capture and Control with a Spearhead deployment. I got to deploy first and chose the side with some ruined buildings giving Scott the trees and arcane ruins. I stuck my land raider at the back with the two rhinos up from and the blog fangs in the middle of this triangle. The vindicator was on my right to get it in range nice and early. The scouts and land speeder were held in reserve. I chose a rock formation as my objective in the back corner of my zone.

Scott's (bonus) possessed unit rolled power weapons. He put the marines in some trees which would be his objective. His possessed and defiler were close by with the vindicator and transports up front. His raptors were close to the daemon prince so that they could keep it protected as it flew around. The 3 man terminator squad was held in reserve.

Turn 1My transports moved forward with the grey hunters' rhino deploying smoke. Ragnars rhino was behind a bastion in the middle so I held back on the smoke. The vindicator opened fire first striking down the autocannon from the havocs. The land raider put two wounds on the daemon prince but failed to penetrate the vindicator with its lascannons. The long fangs were more successful but could only shake the vindi, sparing me for a turn. They attempted to finish off the daemon prince with the rest of their weapons but the only wound they achieved was shrugged off.

Scott's raptors and daemon prince jumped towards my grey hunters' rhino but neither cause any harm as the prince couldn't reach with his psychic attack. The defiler ripped apart my brand new vindicator with it's first shot of the game. I had a feeling things weren't going to go my way already. Luckily the havocs failed to bring down Ragnar's rhino but the terminators disembarked and assaulted it instead. It too blew up (I've never known Scott to roll soo many 6s when it counts!) taking down one of his terminators and 3 of my grey hunters!!!

Turn 2The grey hunters piled out of the rhino and rapid-fired the raptors. Sadly, thanks to some awful rolling I only kill 2. The long fangs immobilise the vindicator (the only result I didn't want!) but the thousand sons rhino makes its cover saves.

Ragnar's grey hunters brought down a terinator with small arms fire despite the meltagun missing the target. I'm relieved to see that their Insane Bravado gives them a whopping +3 attacks. Despite a flurry of initiative 5 attacks, one terminator survives to strike back but fails his re-rolls and doesn't score a single wound. The 6 power fist attacks are more than enough to finish him off. I consolidate back into cover as Scott still has a lot of firepower out there.

Scott's land raider picks off a grey hunter and a further 4 are incinerated by the raptors since some how Scott scores 7 wounds from 9 dice!!! The daemon prince then uses his Wind of Chaos to blow a further 3 hunters away leaving just two which they finish off on the charge but only the champion is left. I'm reeling from how quickly that unit was wiped out! The havocs kill one of Ragnar's hunters.

Turn 3I decide to bring my land speeder in to try and remove some of Scott's heavy firepower but it's first ever shot (I only just built it) misses the target leaving it pretty exposed. The land raider finishes off the daemon prince but the long fangs do absolutely nothing to the vindicator or rhino. The wolf guard in Ragnar's unit uses his melta shot to wreck the land raider which forms some handy cover. The land speeder again misses the defiler! A pretty good turn but I'm no closer to Scott's objective and it seems he's still got plenty left to stop me doing so. My only hope to capture it is if Ragnar's unit can assault through the havocs and make a charge for the marines in the trees.

Scotts raptor champion assaults the long fangs but only manages to kill the squad leader before he's taken down. He manages to miss with both pie plates and it's a similar story for the rest of his shooting. Unfortunately his rhinos are getting too close to my objective for comfort. Luckily the rest of Scott's shooting doesn't achieve much more and his possessed marines can't hit the land speeder and only manage to shake it.

Turn 4I blast the land speeder away from Scott's troops and park it next to the vindicator. Ragnar heads towards the havocs with his squad in tow. My shooting is again shocking as the full firepower of my entire army can't destroy the thousand sons' rhino. Logan and his squad burst out of the land raider and can only wreck the rhino even though I was hoping they'd assault the unit after my shooting destroyed it.

Scott brings in his terminators from reserve but they're out of range of my land raider. The thousand sons kill three terminators with their rapid fire shooting and psychic attack (I'm beginning to hate Wind of Chaos). He doesn't achieve a lot else however only claiming one of Ragnar's squad.

Turn 5I bring the scouts on to remove the terminators from my objective. Combined with fire support from the land raider and a flurry of Wulfen attacks I bring them down for a single Wolf Scout loss. Yet again my land speeder fails miserably to take out the defiler. The multi-melta misses it's target and miraculously the heavy flamer penetrates it's rear armour but can only stun it. Thanks to Daemonic Possession this is ignored!

Ragnar and his unit close in on the havocs and for some reason I decide to try and thin them out with small arms fire before charging in (they'll pass a morale check at Ld10 right?). Of course they run off meaning they'll trouble me no more but Ragnar's unit is stranded and nowhere near Scott's objective. Logan and the remaining terminator charge into the thousand sons leaving the sorcerer and a single follower.

Scott's defiler opens up on the stranded GHs and kills two. His possessed do nothing to the land speeder again. In the assault phase Logan finishes off the Thousand Sons but he'll have to deal with a whole horde of berserkers in the next turn.

I roll to see if we get a badly needed (for me) sixth turn and a score of 2 ends the match there.

Final result: Scott holds one objective and only my Wolf scouts are in range of mine. 1-0 to Scott!

ConclusionSo there we have it Scott's first victory at 40K. He said himself that it felt hollow as it was an objective game not annihiliation but I have to say he played it a lot better than I did. Granted I killed more of his army than he killed of mine but that isn't useful unless you can get something onto the objectives. I've learned a lot about objective games from this clash.

What went wrong then? Well to start off with I should've left Logan, his terminators and their land raider parked squarely on the objective ready to fight off any would-be contests. Instead I decided to go all out and push for his objective, hoping I could send something back to mine if needed. I never even got close to Scott's objective and having left mine unguarded it was never going to go any other way.

There were also a few more minor (but no less significant) mistakes on my part. For starters I should never have disembarked my GHs from their Rhino. This wouldn't have been so much of a problem had I focussed all my fire on the daemon prince early on. The raptors were never really likely to trouble me so I should've ignore them in favour of the prince.

In the end the defiler hurt me far more than the vindi and the myriad shots I wasted on the AV13 of the vindi would've been more damaging to the defiler. Obviously Ragnar's unit should've never shot at the havocs as I would've easily dispatched them in close combat and the resulting consolidation move should've brought me into range to contest Scotts objective.

My reserves didn't perform the function they were intended for. The land speeder should've easily destroyed one of his vehicles and then moved in to contest. The Wolf Scouts coming on near his objective could've supported the speeder in clearing the objective while Ragnar came in to claim.

I'd have been very interested to see how a further turn or two would've changed things. However, the way it was going I don't think the result was in any doubt.

So what about the matter of Scotts "free" unit of possessed marines. Well in the end they made very little difference so I can't pretend they were the reason I lost. I'll just have to keep an eye on him in future!

PS. There's some photos to go along with this report but for some reason Blogger insists on putting them at the top instead of where I tell it so I'll try to put them in again tomorrow.

Monday, September 27, 2010

For the last year or so since I got back into 40K I've mostly played games against my friend Matt (who as I've mentioned before plays BA, Orks, Guard and DH). Scott (my housemate) also plays 40K but spends a lot more time painting than playing at the moment. He has a beautifully painted Chaos army and the beginnings of a Tyranids force, that we've mentioned already, which is stunning so far.

Therefore up until now it's been pretty predictable which enemy I'll be facing and I've planned my lists as such. However, now that we're in a position where both Matt and I have several armies to choose from we've decided to vary it a bit more. The other thing is that we rarely play anything other than Annihilation on a Pitched Battle deployment. So from now on we'll have to plan armies without knowing what we're facing and using the full range of deployments and missions in the 40K rulebook (along with the odd Battle Mission/Planetstrike game).

I decided, therefore, to put together a Wolves list that will hopefully do well against any army I'm likely to face. I'm aware that this isn't anything new and that tournament players do this all the time but for us it's different and given our "no stats armies" policy the list won't be quite as you'd expect.

The basic premise is pretty obvious. There's 3 troops units, all in transports and 2 of which have a special character leading them. These are supported by heavy weapons from the vehicles and long fangs. This is a mech army for the most part which means that I'll have to get towards shooty armies pretty quickly and also that CC armies will have to destroy my transports if they want to get into assault with the occupants.

The terminators would make a great objective holding unit since they're troops thanks to Logan and with some clever wound allocation they can make the most of their various invulnerable saves. They don't have any long range fire power, however, so they're probably best charging towards an enemy objective with their land raider and hopefully clearing it and then digging in.

The grey hunters are pretty obvious. The pack without IC support will sit on an objective and hug cover whilst peppering anything that comes close with bolter fire. The pack lead by Ragnar will perform a similar role to the terminators and with a flurry of attacks (thanks to Ragnar's Insane Bravado) they'll make short work of anything that gets too close.

Long fangs should help the effort by de-meching the enemy and then the vindi can hopefully pie-plate the occupants. The land speeder and wolf scouts will either be sneaky end of game objective pinchers or help me pick off anything at the back of the enemy lines that's troubling me.

There you have it then. I'm sure I'll end up changing some, if not all, of it but I'll not really know until I try it out. Speaking of which I played Scott's Chaos Space Marines army last Thursday and I'm in the process of writing it up. Suffice to say I think I learnt a lot about objective games!!

Sunday, September 19, 2010

In the last bit of this series I talked about Njal. His main limitation is that he has limited use in combat. Logan on the other hand, does not have that problem. Let's start with his statline, the highlights are his high weapon skill, three wounds and an impressive 5 attacks striking (potentially) at initiative 5.

Terminator armour obviously makes him pretty resilient and if that wasn't enough he has a 4+ save instead of the standard 5+. He's also one of the very few characters to get Eternal Warrior. Like other SW special chars he has a Wolftooth Necklace so he's got a good chance of getting his attacks through. His High King special rule means that if he's put into a unit of Wolf Guard Terminators he's giving them Preferred Enemy and once per game he gives everything in 18" +1A thanks to Living Legend. Not to mention he's made the Terminators a troops choice freeing up those precious elite slots.

His Axe Morkai can split it's attacks between a S8 power fist or a S5 frost axe. So he has the flexibility of assigning some heavy attacks to a special character but also thinning out the supporting unit with those S5 power weapon hits. On the charge (and counter attack, likely at Ld10) he's getting 6 attacks. On average he should hit with 4 straight off and with re-rolls you'd expect a minimum of 5 hits. Against most targets he's wounding on 2s or 3s (depending on the axe mode chosen) so he should average around 4 wounds per turn. Given that both modes are power weapons that's 4 dead enemies or 4 wounds on an IC.

So you're obviously going to stick him in a land raider with a squad of terminators with wolf claws (who'll re-roll to hit AND wound) and go hunting some heavy enemy units right? Well not necessarily. High King also allows him to give Tank Hunters or Relentless. Imagine if you put him with some Long Fangs then. Heavy weapons moving 6" per turn or getting a +1 penetration bonus when stationary. Sounds pretty good to me.

Well he's versatile, hard as nails and improves a good chunk of your army. Where's the downside? The most obvious is his hefty 275pt price tag. In smaller points games he's not gonna be an option and you've got to have a decent plan for him to make him a safe choice in higher points games. You could easily buy an entire terminator or GH unit for the same price. That or have two tooled up Rune Priests. You can understand where his high cost comes from though and I think used to his full potential he's well worth it. He gives you options when taking down high toughness opponents in close combat and with a terminator unit including a couple of storm shields he's near impossible to shift from an objective.

My personal choice would be the most obvious, a unit of 4 terminators with either wolf claws or TH/SS in a land raider (or 5 in a redeemer/crusader). Roll him right up to the frontline, charge out and see what's left standing after the first round of combat.

Next up for discussion is his would-be successor Ragnar Blackmane. Not quite as tough but he provides a different set of bonuses of his own.

Friday, September 10, 2010

Having sat watching Matt systematically demolish Scott's Tyranid army I was worried that the list I'd put together wouldn't be sufficient to deal with them. Mephiston was instrumental in the BA win and my special characters, in the form of Ragnar and Ulrik, didn't really have anything close to the statline of the Sanguine librarian. However, it was too late to do anything about it so I took my chances with the list I'd put together. Scott would be using the same list again since, as I mentioned before, this is all he has painted at the moment.

1250 pts of Space Wolves

Ragnar Blackmane

Ulrik the Slayer

5x Wolf Scouts with Mark of the Wulfen and power weapon

Lone Wolf in terminator armour with thunder hammer and storm shield

9x Grey Hunters with plasma gun, power fist, Mark of the Wulfen and wolf standard

9x Blood Claws with power fist

Land Raider Redeemer with multi-melta

Deployment

We rolled to see the kind of the deployment we'd use and got Pitched Battle. I won the roll off and placed my Lone Wolf in the centre of the board by the ruined temple. The land raider with Ulrik and the blood claws went on the left flank whilst the rhino with Ragnar and the grey hunters went on the right. The idea being that the Lone Wolf would give some much needed high strength power weapon support to which ever squad was having difficulty. The Wolf Scouts would outflank and come on from reserve.

Scott placed his Carnifex and Hive Tyrant opposite my rhino and on the other side he put Old One Eye sandwiched by two squads of genestealers. As before the Trygon Prime would deep strike in later on.

Turn 1

Ragnar's rhino drives forward at full speed allowing the grey hunters to disembark in front of the 'fex and Tyrant. In the centre the lone wolf advances forward in the direction of the rhino. The land raider fires it's assault cannon and multimelta at but only the assault cannon manages to smash through the hardened exoskeleton of Old One Eye causing a single wound.

Hive Tyrant and Carnifex can only immobilise the rhino

Scott advances the Tyrant and Carnifex towards Ragnar and pushes the genestealers towards the land raider with Old One Eye in support. The Hive Tyrant and Carnifex charge into the rhino but only the 'fex gets a hold on the speeding vehicle smashing it into the ground and permanently immobilising it.

Turn 2

I roll for my Scouts but it seems they're still trying to outflank. The Lone Wolf advances defiantly towards the Hive Tyrant desperate to avenge is fallen brethren. The land raider continues to advance and as it nears the hulking mass of Old One Eye it's assault ramps open and Ulrik's blood claws pile out. The flamestorm cannon incinerates 2 genestealers and another burst from the assault cannon wounds Old One Eye further.

On the right the grey hunters open fire with small arms on the Hive Tyrant wounding him. The blood claws follow suit by firing at the genestealers wounding three as they head into combat. Their position meaning that Old One Eye will not be able to get past them to hurt the land raider with his S10 attacks.

Ragnar unleashes a terrifying lupine howl as his squad charge the Hive Tyrant supported by the Lone Wolf who is caught in the furious charge. The Tyrant's lash whip means four of the grey hunters will assault last but since Ragnar's Insane Bravado means the squad get a punishing +3A bonus the Hive Tyrant is brought down for only a single Space Wolves casualty. On the left the genestealers fail to make any kills as Scott rolls an impressive five 1s from six dice, consequently they were wiped out.

The Trygon emerged from the earth next to the blood claws firing off it's containment spines at them but with little effect. The carnifex is forced to skulk round the back of the rhino to avoid being charged by the lone wolf. It fires it's stranglethorn cannon at the hunters killing three (including the standard bearer) and wounding Ragnar. Surprisingly the hunters fail their leadership test and conveniently fall back enough to be out of the carnifex's charge.

The blood claws face a horde of Tyranids

The remaining 'stealers and and Old One Eye charge the Ulrik and his blood claws giving them a seemingly impossible challenge. The genestealers proceed to rip five of the young Space Wolves apart. Old One Eye dispatches the Wolf Priest and a further 3 space wolves but falls to the power fist. Only a single blood claws is left to battle the remaining 8 genestealers!

Turn 3

The land raider unleashes the assault cannon and firestorm at the trygon causing two wounds. Ragnar and the Grey Hunters annihilate the carnifex for a further single loss. The Lone Wolf heads towards the Trygon hoping to die gloriously.

The genestealers finish off the remaining blood claw but fail to get into combat with the lone wolf after they consolidate 1" and also only manage a 1" run. The trygon can only stun the land raider as it scores only two hits due to the land raiders movement.

Turn 4

The scouts yet again fail to arrive on the scene leading me to give up on them actually doing anything this battle. The Grey Hunters blast three stealers and the flamestorm cannon fries another 3. The remaining genestealers charge in on the Space Wolves but both are killed leaving the trygon alone as in the previous battle. He proves his worth again by wrecking the land raider.

Turn 5

Trygon but their shots struggle to hit. They subsequently charge into combat and Ragnar manages to destroy the remaining Tyranid without the help of either the grey hunters or the Lone Wolf.

This was by no means as convincing as the BA battle and I was surprised to have done so well with the list I'd chosen. Granted on KP it doesn't look that good at all but 2 of those points come from me messing up and forgetting my wolf scouts and failing to get the lone wolf killed. Scott was pretty unlucky several times and that really changed the course of the battle. I think the three key spots of bad luck were:

1. The appalling rolling when using the genestealers in terms of both their ability to hit things and their ability to run and consolidate.

2. The grey hunters failing their morale check and fleeing out of range of the carnifex

3. The trygon failing to destroy the land raider first time round. This would've saved some genestealers and freed up the trygon to assault something else.

Carnifex is forced to go around the rhino to get at Ragnar

I don't feel like Scott did very much wrong but I certainly didn't make it easy for him by blocking the movement of both the Carnifex and Old One Eye. I have to say I'm very impressed with Ragnar. Furious charge is always nice and can even be used on Counter Attack (which killed the genestealers) and the Insane Bravado gives them an outrageous number of attacks on the charge. The Wulfen guy only rolled a 4 but still came out with 8 attacks at one point!!

The Lone Wolf provided valuable extra attacks which made defeated the Hive Tyrant quick and painless. He'd have probably died if he'd attacked the Trygon alone but with a 3+ invulnerable save it was by no means certain.

The blood claws proved their worth but sheer weight of enemy attacks proved to be far too much for them. Their low WS certainly doesn't help but the land raider meant they were certain to get at least one +2A charge (which really helps the power fist out).

Yet again it was a special character that won the game for the marines army. In the Blood Angels case Mephiston did it all by himself but Ragnar's ability to upgrade a squad made them into a super unit.

I can't wait for Scott to have a more sensible Tyranid army but I have a feeling I might not be soo lucky next time around!

Wednesday, September 08, 2010

So my housemate Scott has been very busy lately painting up his Tyranid army. As ever he started with the coolest looking models first and then realised he ought to start making a legal list from them. Matt and I have been desperate to play against him ever since we saw the fantastic paintjob he'd achieved on his Trygon Prime. Therefore when he announced at the weekend that he'd got 1250 points ready to go we jumped at the chance. We decided to have two battles, firstly Scott would play Matt's Blood Angels and then face off against my Wolves. Bear in mind Scott doesn't really have a balanced list since, as I said he's painted some of the cooler Heavy Support units first. I'll start off with the BA vs Nids battle today and then hopefully I'll get chance to put up my battle tomorrow. Anyway here goes:

To keep things simple we decided to play Annihilation for both battles (especially since Scott didn't have many troops to play with) but we rolled as normal for the deployment type, giving us Dawn of War.

Scott deployed first putting one squad of genestealers and the Tyrant in the middle of the map. Matt deployed Mephiston on the Angels' left flank, the scouts up on a hilltop and the assault squad between the two with the Sanguinary priest lending a hand. The only unit to succumb to the Red Thirst were Matt's terminators.

Turn 1

Scott brought on Old One Eye and the Carnifex leaving his second Genestealer unit and Trygon Prime in reserve. The Hive Tyrant fire his venom cannon at the scouts hitting two but only claiming one victim. His Carnifex's large blast scattered harmlessly away from the Blood Angels' Librarian.

In Matt's turn Mephiston summoned the power of the warp to allow him to sprout wings and fly towards the genestealers with the assault marines moving in to support him. The predator and terminators moved on and focused their firepower on the Hive Tyrant but to Matt's frustration his Krak missiles missed and the storm bolter shells pinged harmless off the Tyrant's exoskeleton. The Predator didn't fair better as the lascannons failed to hit the target. The Tyrants only wound came from one of his sharpshooters rending the exoskeleton useless.

The assault squad picked off four genestealers in a torrent of small arms fire and Mephiston finished off the rest without breaking a sweat.

Turn 2

The tyranids continued to advance and it became clear that the deployment type was going to hamper Scott immensely as his Carnifex and Old One Eye were unlikely to reach Matt's lines intact. His Hive Tyrant fired at the terminators instead of risking not making it into combat. However, venom sprayed fruitlessly onto the rocks below the Terminators. The Carnifex hit Mephiston this time but the librarian was unscathed.

Matt had a lot of success with shooting this time round with the scouts unbelievably taking out Old One Eye in a single round of shooting after scoring a large number of rending hits. This was followed by the krak missiles from the cyclone launcher exploding the hive tyrant from within after the lascannons had weakened the mighty Tryanid leader.

Turn 3

The second Genestealer brood entered play on Scott's right flank and charged into combat with Mephiston. Unbelievably Mephiston annihilated the entire squad for just a single wound in return.

The Trygon Prime split open the ground next to Mephiston's feet sending out a shower of containment spines which claimed the lives of two assault marines who failed their FNP saves.

The Carnifex wasn't soo lucky and FNP prevented it from taking a single marine's life.

The Blood Angels responded by both Mephiston and the assault squad charging into combat with the towering Trygon. Mephiston attempted to fire his plasma pistol on his way in but it overheated, he reacted quickly however, and it did him no harm.

Thanks to Shadow in the Warp Mephiston didn't succeed either psychic test and on the second dark terrors from within took their toll on his mind. He did however achieve a single wound but the Shadow prevented him from killing it instantly. The Trygon failed to return the favour. The assault marines added another blow to the tally.

Turn 4

The Carnifex charged into the melee but was quickly dispatched by the rampant librarian. The Trygon avenged his death but took another wound. The rest of Matt's army (including the outflanking Baal Predator) with nothing left to shoot moved in ready to bring the beast down should their comrades falter.

Turn 5

The Trygon wiped out all but one of the assault squad in Scott's turn and finished the job in Matt's using its consolidation move to bring it closer toward the terminators.

Turn 6

The Trygon hurled itself into combat with the terminators killing two. Unfortunately the combined weight of the remaining power fists was enough to bring it down and with that the game ended.

So the Blood Angels successfully purged the Tyranid infestation from the planet but it never really seemed like it would be anything but a convincing win for them. Obviously this being Scott's first game with this army (and he hasn't played that much 40K before either), he was always going to make some mistakes.

In this instance I think the decision to keep his genestealers in reserve made the first turn very simple for Matt as he could focus all his fire on the Hive Tyrant which was looking to only suffer a single wound from all that firepower. The Dawn of War deployment hampered Scott greatly as his slower units were never going to trouble the Blood Angels. The fact that they were spread out made it even easier for Matt to systematically pick them off.

Mephiston was by far the most valuable unit in Matt's list. The guy took down 12 genestealers and a carnifex and wounded the Trygon. He did all that despite struggling to use his powers to great effect and even took a wound from their attempted use. That initiative of 7 really paid off as it meant he struck first even against the genestealers. Credit has to go to the scouts though as they took down a unit that costs nearly twice as much as them. Granted it was some lucky rolling but it meant Matt could breathe very easily. I doubt many BA players would've included them instead of more assault marines but this is a fine example of an outsider excelling itself. This is why we don't like stats armies as you never get that feeling of a weaker unit outshining other more obvious choices.

The only unit for the Tyranids that was of any real effect was that Trygon. It just didn't seem to want to die. Toughness 6 is a real bitch at the best of times but coupled with 6 wounds it's pretty formidable. The fact that he took down both Mephiston and an all but complete squad of marines is testament to how powerful it is. It was pretty unlucky not to kill more terminators as Matt was lucky on his 5+ rolls.

Having watched all this unfold I started to think about my list for the following battle. I wasn't sure how I was going to deal with the Trygon especially since I didn't have the option of fielding an I7 behemoth.....